


Smooth Sailing

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [7]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Questions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 10:11:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: Clara has a very important, very serious question for the Doctor, whose answer quickly descends into an impromptu lesson about the ins and outs of regeneration and the stupidity of the gender binary. Standard night in, really.





	Smooth Sailing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hookedphantom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hookedphantom/gifts).



> While watching The Witchfinders, my mum asked why Thirteen has visible roots. When this conversation was recounted to Billie, the question was then asked as to why Thirteen doesn't have leg hair. This just sort of... happened.

“Doctor?” Clara asked one evening, sitting up in bed enough to look at her partner. The Doctor was engrossed in a book, glasses propped on the end of her nose and the blanket tucked around her legs as she lost herself in the world of Austen. 

“Mm?”

“Doctor, can I actually have your full attention please?” 

“Mm?”

“Doctor!” 

The Time Lady jumped, the glasses slipping off her nose entirely and tumbling onto the bedcovers between them. She snapped her book shut guiltily and put it on the bedside table, before turning her whole body towards Clara and smiling at her receptively. “Sorry. Hi. I forget how much of Mr Darcy ended up being based on… never mind. You needed me. What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing’s wrong, per se…” Clara swallowed, feeling suddenly silly for having interrupted her partner’s rare moment of quiet time. “I just… I have a question, and it’s been bothering me for a while now.” 

“Is everything alright? Are _we_ alright?” the Time Lady looked abruptly panicked, leaning forward and taking Clara’s hands in her own. “Is it something I’ve done? Tell me, and I can change. I can fix it. Anything you need. Just say the word.”

“No! No, it’s nothing you’ve done,” Clara felt her cheeks turn suddenly, blindingly maroon. “No, it’s… god, it’s a really silly question.” 

“I’m sure it’s not,” the Doctor said with characteristic kindness, giving her hands an encouraging little squeeze. “Fire away.” 

“So, urm…” Clara dropped her gaze to the blanket spread over her legs, picking at the fabric with one hand. “It’s just… why don’t you have leg hair?” 

“What?!” the Doctor let out a surprised yelp of laughter. “What kind of question is _that_?!” 

“I don’t know! I just… you don’t have any, and it’s weird! I mean… it’s not _bad_ weird, it’s just… I don’t know, I kind of assumed that you would. Is this a thing Time Lords normally have? Or Time Ladies? Does Missy have like… secretly super hairy legs? Is that what the skirts are for? Is she just really lazy about shaving them? Or is she sticking it to the man and not shaving them?” 

“I don’t even want to think about Missy’s legs in general, let alone her in the shower shaving them,” the Doctor grimaced. “I don’t know? I just sort of… don’t have any.” 

“You mean it’s not there and you’re just shaving it off?” 

“Clara, do I seem like the kind of person who has the time or patience to shave my own legs? More to the point, do I seem like the kind of person who _could_ shave her own legs without bleeding to death?” 

“These are excellent points.” 

“I think it’s just… not there. I might end up having space puberty at some point, though, so it could all change and I could get super fuzzy. That’s a horrifying thought. I might get all emotional and spotty and angst-ridden and start telling my mum I hated her. If I had a mum. Which I don’t.” 

“You’re already angst-ridden,” Clara reminded her fondly, leaning over and ruffling her partner’s hair. “Remember?”

“I…” the Doctor attempted a scowl, but her face broke into a smile midway through. “I suppose I am, from time to time. Dunno about the leg hair thing though. It might just all sprout one day. Who knows?”

“I mean… that could potentially be quite weird. What if I wake up next to a yeti one morning?”

“You wouldn’t be waking up next to a yeti,” the Doctor said seriously. “They’re very aggressive and very shy creatures; you’d either be dead or alone.” 

“You know what I…” 

“I mean… I thought that using my regeneration energy to restore my eyesight would cost me something, but I kind of thought we’d worked out exactly what that was by now.” 

Clara couldn’t suppress her smirk, remembering that particular conversation in great detail. “I thought we had, yes.” 

“Well, maybe we were wrong. Maybe that was just a random mutation and I actually sacrificed my leg hair.” 

“I mean, and the rest of your body hair. I really hate you for not having underarm fuzz, just so you know.” 

“Says the woman whose body doesn’t change, ever, and is thus never bothered by body hair growth in general?” 

“Says the woman who is perpetually stuck with just the _tiniest_ bit of underarm fuzz, but mercifully smooth legs.”

“Humans are weird,” the Doctor wrinkled her nose. “I mean, it’s just hair on parts of you that aren’t your head. I had it for over 2000 years. It wasn’t awful. I lived with it. Kinda liked it, actually.” 

“Yeah, but you were a man then. Men are allowed to be hairy. It’s like… a whole thing on Earth. A whole stupid thing, but a whole thing nonetheless.”

“Gender binaries are weird,” the Doctor said solemnly, and Clara couldn’t help but nod her agreement. “What does it matter who has body hair and who doesn’t? It’s just an arbitrary evolutionary feature that humans no longer need. Shave it or don’t shave it; make your own choices.” 

“Why do Time Lords have body hair, then?” Clara asked, frowning. “I mean, you evolved to be like… the supreme beings and all that, so what do you need body hair for? I mean, not you personally at this current moment, but your species as a whole.” 

“Relic from when we were cave dwellers,” the Doctor shrugged, waving her hand vaguely. “Or something. Not sure; never asked.” 

“Was hair removal big on Gallifrey?” 

“I think Missy actually lasered hers off once or twice. Including her own eyebrows… mostly by accident.” 

Clara snorted at the image of a confused Missy with no eyebrows, smoking lightly as she stared in a mirror in horror. “Smooth. Literally.” 

“And mine, actually. The laser was a bit… non-discriminatory in that respect.” 

“Poor you,” Clara pouted, giggling to herself at the thought. “I bet you still looked cute.” 

“I always look cute,” the Doctor said, preening just a little at the compliment, and Clara leaned over and kissed her quickly. “What was that for?” 

“Being you,” Clara hummed, then chewed her lip thoughtfully. “Can I ask another question?” 

“Someone’s spent a long time pondering this, haven’t they?” 

“Maybe,” Clara poked her tongue out, then asked in a rush: “Why do your roots always look like they need doing?” 

“No idea,” the Doctor shrugged, running a hand through her hair self-consciously in an echo of her previous self’s favourite nervous tic. “If it bothers you that much, I could have them done, I suppose, but I don’t think I could sit still for that long. And I don’t know how long it’d last; might not even work on my hair. I tried touching my roots up last time around; didn’t go well.”

“What do you mean, ‘last time around’?” Clara narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You didn’t try to dye it, did you?!” 

The Doctor turned scarlet, shuffling awkwardly away from Clara a millimetre or two. “Might have done, yeah. I urm… I was labouring under the misguided impression that you’d like it. Thought it might remind you of my bow-tie self.” 

“Well,” Clara blinked in consternation at this revelation. “I wouldn’t have done, so I’m glad it didn’t work.” 

“Do you really want me to sort them out? If it’s an issue?” 

“No, of course not,” Clara shook her head. “And it’s not an issue; I was just curious about it.” 

“It might be… I don’t know, an environmental thing.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, humans in your time period – your home one, not now – are prone to having their roots like this. So I might have kind of… assimilated it into my look without trying to.”

“Is that something you can do?” Clara asked in fascination, amazed by the implications. “Pick up on traits?” 

“I mean, it’s not unknown. I’m still wondering if the accent was you.” 

“Excuse me, I’m _not_ from Yorkshire.”

“No, but you’re northern. You spent time influencing … well, the me who wasn’t the Doctor, at a time that mattered a lot to him and to me. And then my next face… surprise surprise, ended up northern. He fell in love with Rose and got all southern and boring. Stayed like that until Amy came along, and then I ended up Scottish. And then…” her face broke into a grin. “Then I met this lovely northern lass, _again_ , and the next time I changed… boom. Not only northern… but a woman at that.”

“You make me sound so influential.”

“I mean, you sort of are,” the Doctor said fondly, pulling Clara into a hug. “My Clara.” 

“Oh, shush.”

“Shan’t.” 

“Love you. Idiot.” 

“Love you too,” the Doctor pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Lots and lots. Oh, and Clara?” 

“Mm?”

“I think I’ve crushed my glasses.”


End file.
